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Open Source, Genetically Engineered Machines From a Kit?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Nov 15, 2007 03:23 PM
from the quite-a-kit dept.
from the quite-a-kit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Students in an MIT competition are helping to build a dev-kit for cells. Together with synthetic biologists, they're building a Registry of Standard Biological Parts called BioBricks. They aim to do for cells what open source software has done for computers. 'The competition is a showcase for the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. Knight and his colleagues Randy Rettberg and Drew Endy, who created the contest in 2004, want to make biological systems easy to build by applying the tools of computer science and engineering: using standard parts and modular design to simplify complex systems. The goal is to create "genetic Legos" that could produce any chemical, from ethanol to pharmaceuticals.'"
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Submission: (Open Source) Genetically Engineered Machines by Anonymous Coward
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Any chemical? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Any chemical? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Glub, glub (Score:2)
Hmmm...
I was thinking CH3CH2OH
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I'd be more interested in a more complex molecule...like, say, C20H25N3O. ^_^
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They can have better controls, yeast that stops or accelerates at certain points. A new vector for subtle flavors.
Ha! I love it (Score:3, Interesting)
I would love to stick this web page in his face.
anyone else wnat to sign up... (Score:2)
BioBrick? Please... (Score:3, Funny)
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Basic Programming Blocks? (Score:3, Funny)
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They kindof look down on Unix around there. I vaguely remember a friend who went there mentioning they used some OSS variant of Unix that she was fairly sure not to be Linux. She said it developed there and didn't have a huge base.
Just what we need (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Interesting)
This is simply a probability function. The more people that have the ability to create a biowarfare agent, the higher the chances that you'll have one released into the wild.
Consider this. The DNA sequence for the 1918 avian flu virus is public domain. You can buy base pair sequences online. It's not that difficult to add 1 and 1 to get 2. This isn't really technology you want to democratize to the masses. The number of angst ridden hate the world biochemists is much smaller than the number of angst ridden pimple faced teenagers. Given the ability, sooner or later one of them is going to think it's a cool idea to wipe out half the human species and will try.
Parent
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Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm being alarmist about this, why not let anyone buy weapons grade plutonium or uranium and publish functional weapons designs along with the CAD/CAM instructions? After all, using your logic it's alarmist to think anyone would actually go to the trouble of actually constructing and using a bomb.
After all, the technical and monetary investment needed to build a nuclear bomb is several orders of magnitude greater than what is required to build a biological agent. If we don't have anything to worry about with biological agents, then obviously our nuke fears are overblown as well.
Parent
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Reminds me of the periodic scares that we got in the 1980s when the media would report on how a chemistry grad with some household chemicals could easily produce a chemical weapon capable of wiping out all life in a mile's radius from one drop.
It really hasn't happened very often. I think some Japanese terror group once killed people on the Tokyo subway using chemical weapons, but that was one of the few times such a thing happened. We certainly haven't seen humanity wiped out by angry chemistry graduate
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I'm not saying there's no threat, but we need a lethal combination of angry biologists and a design for an unbelievably successful virus. The success of conventional warfare as opposed to chemical on both the battlefield and the terrorist's cities suggests that few attempts would ever be made to use such a technique.
You don't really need a combination of angry biologists, and you don't need an unbelievably successful virus or bacterial agent. You just need a modestly successful one. Non-weapons grade anthrax may not kill you as fast or in as small doses as weapons grade anthrax, but it'll still kill you. And live bacteria and viral agents are the gift that keeps on giving.
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My computer, my kitchen utensils, and my car can't kill tens of millions of people.
If you're going to say that someone could create a nasty biological strain with this that they couldn't have constructed without it, you'll have to provide some evidence. For example, if you simply take a stack of petri dishes, expose the first one to air, pick the fastest-growing strain, then lather, rinse and repeat 20 times, the resulting strain will be lethal.
What really bugs me is the automatic assumption that anything people can use their curiosity on will be so misused that we have to ban it in adv
Not the copyright holders. (Score:5, Funny)
These people are obviously terrorists (Score:2)
On a lighter note, do you think they can turn lead into gold? I hear Ron Paul would like to have some more of it to back the dollar?
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The store says milk is worth 2 pieces of paper, you pay two pieces of paper, you say from you employer, I need 2000 piece of paper to do work, your landlord says you can stay for 200 pieces of paper.
Gold isn't needed. Yes, it's based on a non tangible. So what?
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The illusion that the government can somehow do something about it is a needed one though.
Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that it's little bits of paper and thing the system is one of the best for continue progress and civilization.
People who want to bring gold back seem to have forgotten the problems it caus
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And now it's time for Frank Talk with a Frankie (Score:2)
Angel: This is Angel.
Angel & Angel: We are the Android Sisters. What is your question?
Caller: All of reality exists in our minds. Is that true?
Angel: What is your intelligence rating?
Caller: I'm classified as a 5.5555.
Angel: You understand we only speak to you on the level you can comprehend.
Caller: I appreciate that.
Angel: For those of you watching out there, adjust your I-T rating to...
Angel & Angel: 5.5555. What is your question?
Caller: I already asked it.
Angel: What is your
New License on Life (Score:4, Interesting)
What is this crap about a license taking months to produce and release? They should just release it with a license saying everything made with the kit is in the public domain, with the single exception to that disclaimer of all rights that any derivative must also come with that license. Why would it take more than 5 minutes to agree to release that license, and release it?
When some university comes after me for metabolizing glucose as part of my job (moving a muscle during business hours, just like you sometimes do), I don't want to have to argue about some license they've got on some DNA they synthesized.
All these patents on discovered genes are the purest BS violation of prior art. Any complexity in this BioBrick Public License will create more problems than it could ever solve.
i swear i'm not a luddite (Score:5, Insightful)
downside: hello nerve gas
results: all of the pluses and minuses of free computer code manipulations we are familiar with (intellectual property meltdown, hackers, etc.), replicated in the world of biochemistry. except this time, the script kiddies are playing with petri dishes
what took an entire universy research department, with all the pcr machines, southern blots, grad students, etc. 10 years ago, will 10 years from now be on the workbench of high school students
i'm all one for the relentless march of technology, and there is no putting pandora back in the box, but this leaves me feeling queasy
maybe it's just the GM wasabi in my sushi
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Emphasis added. The word you want to use here is "illicit," as in illegal. "Elicit" is a homophone, but means something entirely different.
OK, Pandora was never in the box, you dig? The box (actually a jar in better translations) contained a whole host of blessings (at least in some versions), but also many curses besides (from the versions of the myth that have persist
dude, i don't even capitalize or use periods (Score:2)
why the hell do you grammar nazis try so hard?
that was a rhetorical question (Score:3, Informative)
the truth is, your mind is brittle and inflexible
the average person on the street can decipher text messages, slang, etc., without any trouble or mental fuzziness
however, there exists a certain inflexible segment of small-mined, petty, and mediocre people who believe it is somehow more important to focus on the color of the wrapping paper rather than gift
that's a metaphor for valuing cosmetics over content. it means i think your mind is shallow. can you comprehend a metaphor d
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I don't know. Is there any huge reason FOR High School students to be practicing this stuff?
PCR is surprisingly easy to do (albeit sloppily). Looking back, my high school probably had most of the necessary equipment. However, I can't really think of the educational value of performing a PCR reaction, given that alt
power, man (Score:2)
there's no reason to make napster
there's no reason to master electronic sampling in music
do you really think a teenager finds nothing compelling about a quick and easy way to make any chemical he wants in his gym locker?
Re:i swear i'm not a luddite (Score:4, Insightful)
No. No. You are not going to use that argument here. That is the argument that is killing science. You want to stop someone making deadly gas? Here, not even using the classic "Chlorine" form household chemicals one. How about some phosphene gas? Colourless, odorless, tasteless, kills with low concentration. Can be made with urine (collected, aged, and distilled with charcoal to extract phosphorus), and a some natural gas from a line. Want to ban the action of urination?
Yes, the knowledge and ability to make some deadly compounds have always existed. Its the blight of the scientist; no one trusts us. Scientists are not the heroes, we are always portrayed as either bumbling and accidentally unleashing a horror onto the world, or a megalomaniac bent on global conquest. But the benefit of being able to learn at home far outweighs one or two people that accidently injure themselves. The best way of combatting these accidents? Promoting more science at home. With knowledge instilled at a young age, then its less likely that someone will get hurt, and with learning responsibility at a young age, less likely to hurt others. Its kinda like taking karate, no mater how pissed you get, you don't whip out the years of honed skills for revenge. Its just not polite.
As a young lad I had seven layers of shit beaten out of me, almost on a daily basis. What did I do? Did I take my gun and shoot everyone? Did I make explosives and take everyone out with me? Did I gas my tormentors? Did I use my historical knowledge of poisons craft a unique death? Nope. Wouldn't. Because all life is important, even the life of the dick that is kicking you in the skull. On the other hand, my former tormentors might have notice they went through tires and cars in general faster then their classmates... Never said I was above all forms of petty vengeance...
Parent
kind of on the right path (Score:3, Interesting)
that's the kind of "less genocide" teenagers are concerned with
Saw a talk by Tom Knight recently (Score:5, Interesting)
Some interesting points I remember from the talk:
- His lab and others like it are trying to take the craft out of manipulating cells and make it an engineering discipline.
- They've got ready-made kits of cell building blocks that you can piece together like Legos, and are adding thousands of new ones each year.
- Cells are enormously more efficient at storing information that we can in silicon - 5 or 6 orders of magnitude more dense - but most cells aren't good at writing new data, just reading it.
- Cells are really good at making precise structures at the atomic level, but our mechanical processes rely on statistics and probabilities to get things right. The smaller the structures get, the more a small statistical variation can really mess things up. Carbon nanotubes are much-hyped, and guess what's really good at making carbon structures?
- Another useful critter that was created for the last competition detected arsenic in water. The best manufactured/chemical solution costs is tens of dollars per test; using these kits, undergraduates from Edinburgh created something over a summer that is so cheap the bottles to put it in are the dominate cost.
This is old news. (Score:2)
Just in time for Christmas! (Score:5, Funny)
Kids: BOR-ING!
Announcer: A ray gun?
Kids: BOR-ING!
Announcer: How about the new amazing Bio-Bricks!
Kids: COOL!!!!!
Announcer voice-over with kids in background hunched over a petri dish full of Bio-Bricks: With Bio-Bricks your kids will have hours upon hours of enjoyment creating new life forms. Bio-Bricks are available at fine genetic research supply stores everywhere.
Announcer reading legal disclaimer:
Neither the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition, MIT, Bejing University, or the government of China is responsible for improper use of Bio-Bricks. Serious injury, mutations, illness, death, or the end of life on Earth may result from improper use of Bio-Bricks. Using Bio-Bricks to create dangerous life forms is not recommended. Adult supervision required.
Scares me (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think about it a whole lot, but back in my mind, I've thought that this is what will kill off all humans on the planet before the end of my natural life. Once you have cheap, easy engineering of microbial life, then all it takes is exactly ONE maniac to design a transmittable disease that will wipe out everyone.
Don't think anyone would do that? Look at some of the more rabid environmentalists who think the worst thing that ever happened to Earth was humanity. Theodore Kaczinsky was a genius, and w
Re:Scares me (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't worry too much about that. While most of humanity would be wiped out, Bruce Willis would survive, enabling the scientists to send him back in time to find the origin of the virus. They'll then be able to create a vaccine and we'll be able to live on the surface again.
We should probably check with him that he didn't see anyone get shot dead at an airport when he was a kid though, as it might mean something tragic.
Parent
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A biohazard waiting to happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
It was just a joke! (Score:3, Funny)
I was only half kidding. Now I'm not kidding at all.
Yeah... (Score:2)
About time too... (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry Guys, This Is NOT a Threat (Score:5, Informative)
I don't often post, but most of the comments here are completely wrong. I'm a bioengineer and have been following this project since its inception. Some points:
- This technology is NOT any more effective or dangerous than "traditional" genetic engineering. You will not be able to make a unicorn, dragon, or some unholy dog/cat combination.
- Building an Über Death Virus from this takes just as much skill, equipment, and knowledge as it would using standard tools. First, the BioBricks are made for use inside of a living bacterial organism. They will not work without a cell to operate in. A virus, by contrast, is just a specialized collection of proteins that is not in any way alive - something very very different from BioBricks.
"But what about a killer bacteria?" I hear you ask. Well, while technically possible, it's not easy to make something that can live comfortably in our bodies. To a foreign bacteria, our bodies are a fortress crawling with guards and death traps. It has taken nature millions of years to develop microbes capable of harming us (as our immune systems have also grown to combat each new threat.) The key point here is that, to create a NEW bacterial threat, one would have to be very well versed in biology and genetic engineering. What's more, for someone of this skill level, it would be much easier to create such a bacteria using standard biological techniques, not BioBricks.
These BioBricks are incredibly cool and powerful, within their problem domain. Making bacteria do things is very different from giving them the ability to successfully harm our bodies and spread to other hosts.
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"Daddy can I have a Unicorn"
OTOH, it would be a great test of her virginity in a bunch of years.
"Sweatheart, Why won't Uni let you pet him? nN an unrelated note, I will need to find my gun before your boyfriend arrives to pick you up...and my shovel."
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